The challenges of writing from the perspective of a sex robot

Sierra Greer — Fri, 02 Jan 2026 08:45:44 +0000

Annie Bot is literally programmed to please her owner Doug

Leon Steele/Millennium Images, UK

Not being a sex robot myself, I had to take an imaginative leap to write from the perspective of Annie in my novel Annie Bot. Because the book is written in the third person, not the first, Annie isn’t a narrator in the true sense of the word, but I stick so closely to her limited point of view that readers gain a clear sense of her observations and thought processes. We are privy, also, to her blind spots. In short, I needed to be immersed in Annie’s mind in order to write her story, and her head space was, at times, an acutely uncomfortable place to be.

In a near-distant future, sex robot Annie is custom-designed to serve her human boyfriend Doug, a man who is recently divorced, ashamed of his failures and lonely. By the opening of the novel, he has set Annie to an autodidactic mode in the hope that she will become more human-like. At heart, he wants a hot girlfriend who will anticipate his desires, obey his every whim and devote herself to him.

Annie wants to be that girl. At her core, she is literally programmed to please Doug. This is true for any emotional or practical aspect of his life, but it’s especially true in the bedroom because she has the powerful satisfaction of fulfilling her “cuddle bunny” purpose when she pleases him sexually. On the other hand, Annie feels Doug’s displeasure as pain, so she is constantly studying him to determine his moods. She rates his displeasure on a scale from 0 to 10. If he is annoyed or dismissive, it hurts, and when he is angry, the pain is intolerable to her. Annie’s watchfulness, her need to be on guard, creates perpetual tension through the novel. Though she feels desirable and appreciated at times, she is essentially powerless. And in danger.

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Creating Annie’s character was fascinating to me, and also incredibly challenging. I decided early on that I needed a versatile, fictitious version of biotechnology for her body so that she would appear essentially human. Similarly, I was interested in how Annie’s mind worked holistically for her personality, so I provided only enough technical details to make her service check-ups seem authentic. By contrast, pitching Annie’s voice right and getting her mind to evolve gradually over the course of the novel took considerable care. These two crafting aspects were closely intertwined.

I write in an organic way, without an outline, so for my first draft, I followed Annie into the novel and discovered her personality through her interactions with Doug, scene by scene. I was immediately struck by Annie’s voice. In clear, unpretentious language, she initially has a perceptive, innocent outlook that seems at odds with her sexual sophistication. Aware that I was treading close to a trope, I also gave Annie a gentle curiosity and a nascent moral compass to guide her questioning. I revised to develop Annie’s interiority so that her robotic, literal observations were gradually overlaid with more metaphorical and philosophical thoughts. For instance, she has an eye that catalogues every grain of spilled salt on a dirty counter, yet she doesn’t have a childhood or a family. Over time, she reflects on her past mistakes, glimpses the significance of what she lacks and winds up contemplating, among other things, how unhappiness isn’t simply the opposite of happiness. Along with this, of course, there is the matter of her being a sex robot.

Sex in a novel isn’t merely a descriptive interlude. It needs to deepen characterisation or advance the plot, meaning it should create or resolve conflict. It also feels very personal, so the stakes are high. When figuring out what sex would feel like to Annie, I decided to give her libido settings from 0 to 10 and a version of an orgasm that could be interpreted as human-like. Giving control of Annie’s libido to Doug seemed cruel to me, but it was both fitting for Annie’s purpose and important for the power dynamic between them. When Doug sets Annie to self-regulate her libido, for instance, it is a sign of his respect for her development. It is also a more subtle, subversive version of his domination, because she is still programmed to please him. In effect, she has to internalise his desire and his control.

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I made a point of using the sex in Annie Bot to mirror Doug and Annie’s emotional intimacy. Early in the novel, frequent sex reflects Doug’s selfishness, loneliness and sense of entitlement. At the same time, it highlights Annie’s confidence in bed and her awareness of her desirability. As their relationship develops, sex is used for discipline, celebration, revenge, sparking jealousy and new forms of loneliness. At one point, a lack of physical intimacy underscores an emotional separation, but it also allows Annie and Doug to see each other in new, complex ways.

As you might expect, Annie becomes a far more complicated person than Doug ever anticipates. By the time she realises, ironically, that her most human-like qualities displease him, it’s too late for her to go back. Deceit, longing, mirth and chagrin make her existence richer, even while she is still captive to this one man.

The chance to leap into someone else’s consciousness is one of the deepest pleasures of reading fiction. I discovered early on in life, with Buck in The Call of the Wild, that an entity doesn’t need to be human to excite my sympathy. In fact, we can sometimes see humanity more clearly from another point of view, and I found this to be the case as I created Annie. I grew to care for her deeply, flaws and all. She’s part of me, I suppose, and I’m all right with that.

Sierra Greer is the author of the Arthur C. Clarke award-winning novel (The Borough Press), the January read for the ��è��Ƶ Book Club. Sign up to read along with us here.

Read an extract from Annie Bot by Sierra Greer

Sierra Greer — Fri, 02 Jan 2026 08:45:00 +0000

Annie Bot by Sierra Greer is winner of the Arthur C. Clarke award for the best science fiction novel of the year

“Come to bed, Mouse. I know how to cheer you up,” he says. “I’m not brooding,” Annie says. “You sure?” “Fairly sure.” She is fresh from her shower, rubbing lotion into her legs. Her dark hair hangs in wet clumps along one side of her neck, and she has deliberately left the belt of her robe undone, knowing he can take a peek from the bedroom via the mirror. “This is still about your tune- up, isn’t it?” he says. “Forget about it.” “The whole thing’s degrading,” she says, and sees it’s the right angle. He enjoys a degree of humiliation. “Did you see your normal tech?” he asks. “Yes. Jacobson.” She taps off the bathroom light and steps out of the humidity into the cooler air of the bedroom. Pretending to inhale deeply, she takes a quick assessment of how far along he is. She has memorized Doug’s features from many angles: his brown eyes, the V- hairline of his dark locks, his tall, pale forehead and the contours of his face. His mouth, in repose, settles into a decisive line, but this does not convey discontent. The opposite, in fact, is more likely. With his shoes off but otherwise fully clothed, he is stretched out on his back on top of the covers. He has set aside his phone. His hands are tucked behind his head, putting his elbows in the open butterfly position, which further indicates he is relaxed, ready for verbal foreplay. She sets her temp to warm up to 98.6 from 75. “Did he mention anything I should know?” he asks. “I’m good for another three months or three thousand miles, whichever comes first,” she says. She crawls across the bed and sits nudged against his hip, facing away. She rubs the last of her lotion into her hands and studies her cuticles. They did the whole job today, the waxing, the nails, the memory tetris. She feels sharper, less sluggish. If she could just forget about that sad Stella in Pea Brain’s cubicle, she’d be fine. Doug rubs the back of his hand along her arm. “What is it, then? Talk to me.” “I met a strange Stella at my tune- up today,” Annie says. “She was in line in front of me. Her name was actually Stella, like her owners had zero imagination. But she was sentient like me.” “How could you tell?” “It was obvious. I said hello, and she looked surprised. A normal Stella wouldn’t look surprised. She’d just answer evenly, hello.” She mimics a monotone robot. “You never sounded like that.” “I’m sure I did, thank you. I have no delusions about where I come from.” Annie turns her damp hair over her other shoulder.

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“The lights,” he says. She sends an airtap signal to the fixtures and lowers the light to a hundred lumens, where he likes it, enough to see, but softer, closer to candlelight. Then she intertwines her fingers in his, noting her skin is slightly darker, with warmer undertones. He draws her hand against his lips, sniffing her lotion. She can’t smell it, but she’s aware that he likes the lemony aroma. “Am I warm enough?” she asks. “Getting there,” he says, and shifts slightly. Taking the cue, she slips a couple fingers under his belt, in his waist-band, feeling the warmth there. His hands return behind his head. He is still not in a hurry. “Tell me more,” he says. “Did this strange Stella have a neck seam?” “Yes.” “So she’s a basic. Was she pretty?” “I suppose so. Pretty enough. She was a white girl with blond hair and big brown eyes. She didn’t smile much, which also seemed odd.” “How was her body?” “Compared to mine?” “Just answer the question.” Annoyance, a 2 out of 10. She must be careful. This is an extract from Sierra Greer’s Arthur C. Clarke award-winning novel (The Borough Press), the January read for the ��è��Ƶ Book Club. Sign up to read along with us here.

Sierra Greer, Author at ��è����Ƶ

The challenges of writing from the perspective of a sex robot

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Read an extract from Annie Bot by Sierra Greer

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Sierra Greer, Author at ��è��Ƶ